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People who use e-cigarettes daily while continuing to smoke seem to be more likely to try to quit and smoke less, but they are no more likely to actually stop smoking, according to a web-based survey of smokers in Great Britain.

In the study, 43.7 per cent of the 508 smokers who did not use e-cigarettes at baseline attempted to quit during the next year. This compares to 52.5 per cent of 124 people using e-cigarettes€non-daily€and 64.9 per cent of the 48 daily users.

Compared with nonusers, people using e-cigarettes daily were twice as likely to make a quit attempt during the next year (odds ratio 2.11) after adjusting for confounders. However, using e-cigarettes daily did not significantly increase the likelihood that the person would quit. Using e-cigarettes less frequently than daily did not increase the likelihood of cessation attempts or success.

Using e-cigarettes daily reduced cigarette consumption: 5.7 per cent of smokers not using e-cigarettes at follow-up, 5.5 per cent of non-daily e-cigarette users and 13.9 per cent of daily users at least halved their cigarette consumption. Daily e-cigarette use at follow-up doubled the chance that the smoker had at least halved their cigarette consumption (OR 2.49). (Addiction doi:10.1111/add.12917)

In contrast, a year-long survey of 1,000 smokers in California found that e-cigarette users were 49 per cent less likely to decrease cigarette consumption by at least 20 per cent during the one-year follow-up compared with smokers who never used e-cigarettes. After a year, e-cigarette users were 59 per cent less likely to have quit for 30 days or more.

E-cigarettes users were 15 per cent more likely to report making a quit attempt, although this was not statistically significant.

€Based on the idea that smokers use e-cigarettes to quit smoking, we hypothesised that smokers who used these products would be more successful in quitting,€ said Wael Al-Delaimy of the San Diego School of Medicine. €The research revealed the contrary. We need further studies to answer why they cannot quit. One hypothesis is that smokers are receiving an increase in nicotine dose by using e-cigarettes.€ (Am J Public Health doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302482)